Anastasia's 4th Birthday

Our sweet little bundle of joy, our ray of sunshine, turned four today. There is no sweeter, happier, jollier four year old kid on the planet.

Six days after she born, she started to cry. And she rarely stopped crying until her first birthday! Every six weeks she would get a recurring impetigo type rash on her face, with cold symptoms. I took her to several different doctors, and one naturopath, and no one ever did figure out what was wrong. When her first birthday approached, the time between the outbreaks stretched farther and farther apart, until completely stopping around 18 months of age.

At eighteen months, her eyes began to cross, and the month before her second birthday she started wearing glasses, which keeps her eyes straight. She has poor vision too - all because she has so much of her daddy in her! He had both problems when he was her age.

Around the same time, she had surgery on her two front teeth. Implants - because she fell and chipped her teeth badly. She looked like a vampire for a long time! But there was worry of infection, which spreads quickly at that age, so oral surgery was a must.

A month later, she fell off the bunk bed ladder, head first, and spent the night before Christmas Eve in the ER, having and X-ray, MRI, CT-scan and I forget what all. It was the longest 12 hours of my life. I was nine days overdue with Natalie at the time. They found a hairline fracture in a neck bone, and she had to wear a brace for six weeks.

She now shines bright and happy every day. It is hard to believe sometimes that this is the same child who cried all the time four years ago. She is so sweet. She makes us all happy all the time.

We started her day with a special trip out, just her and mommy, and used her Birthday free-happy-meal-coupon.



Then home to party! Pinata time:

Then gift opening time (not sure what that facial expression is about!):

Then a phone call from Grandpa:

And cake! The one purple rose had some sort of accident

along the way and tried to slide off the cake.

**update** After I posted, Paul found a free buffet coupon, so he took her out for a nice dinner-in-a-restaurant with daddy at Aliante Station. She was all smiles when they came back. She said she ate macaroni and cheese, ravioli, some stuff she didn't know what it was, carrot cake and ice cream. She was a happy girl!

I think she had a lot of fun. Most of her stuff was found on Freecycle, and there was a cute doll that washed up well. I debated whether to give it to her, or to Natalie. I wrapped it up for today, and when she opened it, she was very excited and happy. Then immediately she turned around and handed it to Natalie. Paul said how sweet that was to share her new dolly. She said, "No, I'm GIVING it to her." And she hasn't touched it since. So I guess I should have saved it for Natalie!

She received an enormous bowling set that is a big hit too. And a Dora backpack, among other things. She is a happy camper.